


Beyond the Pleasure Principle

by vocativecomma



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, femmeslash, powerfic, slavefic, vampire!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:06:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vocativecomma/pseuds/vocativecomma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A vampire and her bloodslave play a dangerous game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond the Pleasure Principle

The ache is particularly intense. Meg presses herself against the fingers that are both inside and outside of her, but her mistress will not decrease her pace. The prickling burn between her legs has also taken up residence in the bottoms of her feet. Her back arches involuntarily, as if a part of her knows that escape would be prudent.  
“Demanding tonight, aren’t we?” Leona teases. She rarely talks during sex, and Meg is almost overwhelmed by the additional stimulation.  
“It’s too much,” she says. “God, just let me come.”  
“I can stop, if you like,” Leona says, removing one of her fingers. Meg makes an inarticulate, sad little sound. “But I’ll take pity on you, this once.” The finger re-enters. “This should do it.”  
As if on cue, the burning subsides, replaced by the welcoming pulse of her release. “Am I really that predictable?” Meg asks herself. “And am I ever going to meet another person who knows me so profoundly?”  
Leona reclaims her hand, and Meg is crawling across the bed, guided by the desire to reward those discerning fingers. She is expecting Leona’s lips to be soft and full against hers, which they are. What she is not expecting is the sharp, stabbing pain. She jerks away, but it is too late.  
“What were you doing?” Leona asks. She sounds more curious than angry.  
“I was trying to kiss you,“ Meg says.  
“And my fangs had other plans. Let me see your lip.”  
Meg shows her.  
“It’s just a little nick,” Leona says. “It probably feels worse than it actually is.”  
“I’m sorry,” Meg says. She resists the urge to get out of bed and kneel. Leona detests groveling of any kind. “I shouldn’t have done it. You told me not to touch you without permission, and I disobeyed. I know that you need to punish me.”  
“Don’t cower like that,” Leona says. “As you may recall, in that same conversation, I also told you that I will not punish you. Ever. If you want to kiss me again, without the fangs, just ask next time, okay? I can make sure that they are retracted.”  
“You mean, it’s all right? If I kiss you sometimes? It’s just that you make me feel so good. And it’s kind of strange, you know, feeling like I’m not giving you anything back. I know I am, but it’s not the same as what you give me. I’m babbling, aren’t I?”  
“It’s typically not done,” Leona says. “But if you really feel the need to kiss me, I suppose I don’t see the harm in it, as long as you ask permission.”  
Meg takes advantage of this new freedom six times within the next three months. The formality of having to ask for such a thing makes her shy. And while Leona always says yes, she doesn’t participate, keeping her distance from Meg’s tongue as it explores its new domain. Once, Meg thinks she can detect the slightest flicker of a response, a brush of flower petals across the underside of her lip, but it is gone so soon that she can’t be certain. Afterward, she reaches for Leona’s left breast.  
“Don’t,“ Leona says.  
* * *  
Each night, at about ten o’clock, Leona will knock three times on Meg’s door.  
“Come in,” Meg will say.  
The room that Leona has given her, in this virtual world where she is the vampire’s slave, has become more of a home to her than her noisy apartment, so Leona will most likely find her sequestered in her uncomfortable little nest of papers and blankets and assorted random wires.  
“I’m almost finished with this,” Meg will say, her voice slightly muffled. “Can you wait another fifteen minutes? If I stop now, I’m going to completely lose my train of thought. This is due tomorrow, and I’ve already pissed Bernier off because I handed the last one in late.”  
“Yes. I can wait. But not too much longer.”  
Leona will leave. Meg will distractedly finish the problem set she’s working on, while imagining what would happen if she refused to heed Leona’s summons. Would Leona take Meg by force, as was her right? Would there be pleasure in that violation of tacit trust, or only humiliation and rejection?  
Meg’s hair is a problem. At first she’d hold it back with a clip, but one night, the clip goes missing, and she realizes that she likes Leona’s reproofs about how a bloodslave should always prepare herself for service, likes inhaling the subtleness of Leona’s perfume as she leans over her, likes the way Leona’s fingers battle with her curls, which seem determined to protect their owner from this enemy who dares to invade their territory, likes the snap of the rubber band as it imprisons the mess that vaguely resembles a ponytail. With the onerous task of securing Meg’s hair out of the way, Leona will begin by tracing her tongue up and down the left side of Meg’s neck, starting from just below her chin, seeking out that perfect spot, with the dedication of a father searching for a parking place at the beach. Meg is aware of only the barest hint of moisture. Leona’s movements are succinct, precise, purposeful. Then there is the inevitable prick, and the clinical press of cool lips. Leona is fastidious in this feeding, as she is in all things. There is no sound. Ten seconds. Nothing more.  
Later, once Leona has gotten into bed, she will bring Meg to orgasm with that same infuriating efficiency. It is payment given for services rendered.  
Every morning, Meg is surprised to wake up and see Leona still lying like a lover beside her, and that sleep has ensured that Leona’s hair is as recalcitrant as her own.  
“Are you awake?” Meg will whisper.  
“I’m awake,” Leona will whisper back.  
On bad days, Meg will stifle a cry of pain when she gets out of bed. Her neck will be stiff. The fang marks will be gone, but the residue of soreness will still cling to her skin. If she were normal, then she would feel nothing by now, or less than nothing. She’d have the memory of the bite, but its edges would be blurred, thanks to the diligence of the geeks at MIT who first developed Total Emersion Technology. The idea of vampires might be sexy, but pain does not sell.  
* * *  
“Promise you won’t drain me?” Meg says. They have just returned from a dinner party. Meg is already lying in bed, the covers drawn up to her chin. Her new skirt is carelessly draped over the back of a chair. Leona stands in a shaft of moonlight at the dressing table, running a comb through her hair.  
“You know I can’t promise you that,” she says. “But as I’ve told you, I will warn you in advance, and I won’t do it for a long, long time.”  
“How long is a long time?” Meg asks. “Maybe it would help me feel less anxious. TO know exactly when it’s going to happen. Because right now, I can’t stop thinking about it.”  
“I don’t know. Three months. Didn’t we already have this discussion?”  
They have had it, many times, on their endless evening walks by the pond, the tang of late blackberries and resentment lingering on their tongues. But at the end of each conversation, Meg feels bereft, like she’s caught in the web of one of her math problems, that if only she could find that one elegant solution, that one missing variable, they could be free from whatever it is that has trapped them.  
Leona persists, relentlessly. “You said that you’d stay in the moment, that you’d enjoy ‘what we have together,’ as you put it. You seemed to be fine at the party. You were smiling, at least.”  
“How do you do it?” Meg says, sitting up abruptly and flinging back the duvet. One of the pillows falls to the floor. ”How do you sit there, drinking and making merry, joking with your friends and their bloodslaves?” Her voice drops an octave. “I love your dress, Lottie. Is it new? What are you studying now, Lottie? Lottie, can I get you something else to eat? I’m getting up anyway. I really don’t mind.” She returns to her own register. “And today, you find out that Lottie’s been drained, and it’s like, everyone is sad for five seconds, and then you all move on. There’s already a new girl. You’re all so fucking fake, and it doesn’t even matter.”  
“Are you finished?” Leona asks. “I’ve explained this to you before. It’s not fake. We love and respect our bloodslaves, but we also accept that if we want to survive, draining them one day is a fact of life.”  
“But you must get attached, sometimes. Wouldn’t it be easier if you locked us in cages and never spoke to us? Why bother with all that kindness?”  
“Easier for you, perhaps,” Leona says. “But I’m not going to start treating you like an animal just so everything can fit into those preconceived little graduate school boxes of yours.”  
“I thought you were different, somehow,” Meg says to one of the remaining pillows.  
“Hmm?”  
“You always said you’d drain me eventually, but I never believed you. Not until tonight, when I realized you think of Lottie as a possession that has worn out, just like all the rest of them do. And sometime soon, you’ll see me in exactly the same way. And I won’t be able to do anything to stop you.”  
Leona crosses over to the armchair by the bed and sinks into it. “You’re not anyone’s possession,” she says. “Least of all mine. I keep trying to tell you that. All things eventually have to come to an end. My draining you was part of our agreement. It’s nothing personal.”  
“That just makes it even worse,” Meg says.  
“I don’t understand what you want from me,” Leona says, and there is a lost expression on her face that Meg has never seen before. “But to be honest, I am not sure how many more times I can do this. You ask for something I can’t give you, and then you act like I’ve crushed you after each rejection. It’s exhausting.”  
“What are you going to do, drain me early so you can shut me up?” Meg says. She’s visibly crying now, and she knows her tears make her look even more theatrical, but she can’t bring herself to care. “I don’t want to die. I was eight years old when I found my mother, Leona. Eight.”  
“So you’ve mentioned,” Leona says, almost gently. “But then why did you choose this particular game, when you’re not interested in knowing what it might be like to experience death, or in achieving the ultimate submission?”  
Meg retreats back under the blankets, but it makes no difference. With mere words, Leona has cornered her, and the temptation to reveal herself is a suffocating thrill.  
“It was… I wanted…” she says, before deciding that silence is her only option.  
Leona’s gaze has turned cool and assessing, and Meg misses its earlier heat. “If I were to hazard a guess,” Leona begins, “it is that you have this preoccupation with changing me, with igniting that magical spark of vulnerability in my soul, while you beg prettily for your life, so that I will recognize your specialness and spare you. Well, I’m not a character in one of your stories. This fantasy of yours isn’t going to happen.”  
Meg allows herself to relax a fraction. Resisting Leona’s perspicacity is about as useless as resisting the pull of her fingers, but Meg has no intention of conceding defeat entirely.  
“If it isn’t going to happen, why is it that when I’m with you, you make me feel so damn needed?” she asks.  
“I’m flattered,” Leona says. “But I don’t make you feel anything. It’s common for bloodslaves to have those feelings towards their masters. I’m sure if you belonged to another vampire, you’d say exactly the same thing.” She’s using that lecturing tone of hers, and Meg wonders for the hundredth time if she is a teacher.  
“I wouldn’t!” Meg says. “There’s this way you have of saying hi to me, even when it’s only been a few days since we last saw each other. It’s like, you have this urgency about you. And at the party tonight, I could tell that you were distracted, that you wanted to leave just as much as I did. And you let me kiss you.”  
“A decision that I now very much regret.”  
“So you’re saying it all means nothing?”  
“What I’m saying is that I am who I am, Marguerite. At the beginning of this game, I agreed to my role, and you agreed to yours. And while I don’t share your interpretation of my feelings for you, nights like this aside, I do enjoy having you as my bloodslave. But I’m not holding you hostage. If what I can offer you isn’t enough, for the love of God, push that blue abort button on your left hand and just leave. Run away as far as you can. I’m not your therapist. I’m not here to help you figure out whatever repetition compulsion you are stuck in that is responsible for your belief that I was put on this Earth to please you. Arrogance is not becoming, especially in someone who is self-aware enough to know better.”  
Meg’s face brightens for a second. “You think I’m self-aware?” she asks.  
“I thought that goes without saying. But yes.”  
“Please stay,” Meg says. “I promise I’ll stop talking about this.”  
“I will stay tonight,” Leona says. “But one more incident like this, and I will have to reconsider. In the meantime, I’m tired and hungry, and I’m going to get ready for bed.”  
The bathroom door clicks closed behind her.  
By the time she returns, Meg has stopped crying. Somehow, she manages to find the elastic that Leona uses. She’s tied her hair back, revealing the pale, tempting expanse of her neck.  
“Look at my obedient little bloodslave, who’s finally learned to prepare herself for her mistress,” Leona says. She pauses, and for a second, Meg believes that Leona will laugh: She’s just mocking a character in one of the bad novels they’ve read together, because really, what self-respecting vampire would actually talk like that? She’ll tell Meg to undo her hair; she won’t feed from her, not when she is so overwrought, and she’ll climb into bed beside her, and tell Meg to sleep well, and for one night, Meg will hold the answer to her equation safe and sound in the palm of her hand.  
Without the customary preamble, Leona’s fangs pierce Meg’s neck. She withdraws for just enough time to ask, “Is this real enough for you?” And then she is feeding, faster and longer than she ever has before, until Meg is gasping and sobbing at the same time. Then she yanks herself out of Meg’s flesh. The bite mark is jagged, but the skin is already beginning to forget the insult.  
“I’m not welcome here,” Meg thinks. “There’ll be no pleasure for me tonight.” When her breathing returns to normal, she starts to disengage herself from the duvet.  
“No. Lie back down,“ Leona says. “I’m going to sleep in the guest room.”  
“I’m sorry, mistress,” Meg says.  
“Why are you apologizing?” Leona asks. “I should be apologizing to you. What I just did was …unnecessary. Do you need anything? An aspirin? Some ice? Something sweet?”  
For a minute, Meg wants to tell Leona just how right she is, that tomorrow, when she’s back in her real body, she’ll have to take at least three aspirin just to make it through her first class. Instead she says, “It’s all right. I’m all right. I just don’t want to be alone.”  
“I don’t see how I’m desirable company at the moment. But very well. I’m too tired to argue with you. Move over.”  
Usually, Meg keeps to the very edge of the bed, and her fear that she will cross some invisible boundary dogs her into sleep. But tonight, she awakens to find that Leona’s warmth is a reassuring glow against her side. She stiffens for a moment, preparing to retreat, but the other woman does not pull away.  
* * *  
Two weeks later, Meg is in her own apartment, having just returned from three days ingame. Her throat burns, and the skin at her clavicle is tight, like an antique choker. Her lips ache from smiling, from the effort of adopting that casual acceptance of their arrangement that she knows Leona prefers. Either Meg is a better actress than she thinks, or Leona has chosen to deliberately ignore her ruse, but Meg knows that it is a matter of time before all these layers of pretense will fail her. She’s thinner and paler than she’s ever been, and last week, Michael told her that if she didn’t stop spending so much time Ingame, she’d turn into a vampire herself. Meg thinks that he was only half-joking. The smell of linden is everywhere, and one of her professors has Leona’s eyes. Once, Meg even called her “mistress” by mistake.  
Meg makes her way to the kitchen and fills the old-fashioned kettle with water. As soon as it begins to boil, the familiar feeling of faintness comes for her. Her heart starts to race, and her arms start to shake. She knows the symptoms. She’s spent hours and hours reading about her recently discovered condition on the Internet, how, in rare cases, a combination of suggestibility and atypical neurology can interfere with the workings of a TET suit in a way its creators never would have imagined. “If I can just make this fucking cup of tea,” she thinks, “it won’t be true.”  
The cup shatters spectacularly.  
* * *  
“You’re hurt,” Leona says, the next time they meet ingame. It’s not a question. Meg is sitting in the big leather chair by Leona’s desk. It’s a chair for a guest, or for Leona herself. But she still feels a bit like a prisoner called to interrogation.  
“I just burned myself, that’s all,” Meg says.  
“That’s quite apparent,” Leona says. “And it’s not the first time something like this has happened.”  
Meg doesn’t correct her.  
“What were you trying to do?”  
“I was making tea, and I fainted.”  
“You feel ill. After I feed from you. In the game. And out of it.”  
“Yes.”  
“You’re an imagiopath, aren’t you?”  
“Yes.”  
“You can’t tell the difference between what’s virtual and what’s real.”  
“I try.”  
“But it doesn’t work.”  
“How do you know?”  
“You insult my powers of induction,” Leona says. “You always finger the place on your neck where the marks would have been. Don’t try to deny it. You’re doing it right now, in fact.”  
Meg’s hands drop to her sides with an audible thump.  
“And you bring your homework with you to do ingame. Frankly, I’m surprised your papers even survive all those trips back and forth. Who does that?”  
Meg’s friends have asked her exactly the same question. The games are meant to be an escape from life, not an extension of it.  
“Your house is quieter and cleaner than my apartment,” she says eventually.  
“I was starting to suspect a few days ago,” Leona continues, as if Meg had not spoken, “When you wouldn’t stop crying after I fed from you. But I thought that no one in her right mind who was aware of her condition would be irresponsible enough to place herself in this sort of situation. Now I know that I am mistaken. Why didn’t you just tell me?” 

“Why do you care?” Meg counters. “You talk about draining me when the time comes.”  
“What I say in the context of a game is immaterial. Do you really think that I am capable of feeding from someone when I am aware that my actions will be causing long-term physiological consequences? Perhaps even real death?”  
“I don’t know you,” Meg says. “I’m not even sure you are human.”  
“You never asked,” Leona says. “But the question of my humanity aside, you must have a reason for needlessly jeopardizing your life by withholding this information.”  
“I’ve only known for a little while,” Meg says. “Before then, I wasn’t certain. I didn’t think I would need to resort to telling you. I thought my words would have been enough to change your mind.”  
“Words are rarely enough,” Leona says. “What would have been so terrible if you had just told me the truth?”  
“Because I knew that if I told you, you’d put an end to things even sooner,” Meg says.  
“That’s quite an assumption on your part.”  
“Not really,“ Meg says. “’I agreed to my role, and you agreed to yours.’ That’s what you said, remember?”  
“I did. But your condition changes things. Obviously, we can’t continue as we are. If you want to see me so badly, without the contrivance of bloodslaves and fangs and all that, I suspect that alternative arrangements can be made.”  
Meg feels as though the force of unleashed possibilities has flung her backward, as though she has put all of her weight into opening a heavy door, only to find that it is implausibly light.  
“Are you going to say something?” Leona asks. “You’ll have to get used to the fact that I don’t make a habit of biting people in real life.”  
“I think I can live with that,” Meg says.  
The difficulty is, she isn’t sure if she can.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone at Forbiddenfiction for your suggestions.


End file.
